Reviews written by metalface13

Wings of War is a fun, little, WWI, dog fighting (airplanes, not canines) game. It's quick, chaotic and explosive! I like the open table mechanic and planning out your maneuvers in secret and executing them in three phases. It's got tons of planes, with real pilots/nationalities for you history buffs and a couple of different maneuver decks that give each type of plane it's own feel. You have faster, less maneuverable planes and slower planes that can turn on a dime.

The game is expandable but each of the box sets plays own its own. I haven't bought any of the miniatures yet as Famous Aces is currently collecting dust on my shelf. But I think the minis would be an BIG improvement over the card versions of the planes. If you're not playing on a card table the cards tend to slide around quite a bit.

An adventure game without all the fantasy, instead it has a much more awesome H.P. Lovecraft theme with gangsters, drifters, nuns and psychologists (and more!) squaring off against occultists, cultists, witches, ghosts and tons of monters you can't pronounce trying to find off insanity and being devoured by big, dark, ancient gods for outer space/other dimensions.

Arkham Horror does a great job emulating an RPG (despite the lack of a DM) with its co-op gameplay, lots of stats for each character, and tons of narrative. Combat is quick and brutal but totally awesome when you get geared up with an enchanted blade and .45 pistol. The spell system feels much more arcane and dark than in your typical fantasy setting and can be tricky to pull off.

I don't have any of the expansions yet, for now the base game has lots of replayability still in it for me. Unfortunately Arkham Horror doesn't hit the table as often as I'd like.

The game of choice amongst my buddies. It's got it all: Loads of characters, tons of monsters, cool miniatures, traps, terrain, variable powers, customizable Overlord deck, tons of items, treasure, squad-based gameplay, 3 expansions and even campaign play.

Descent is awesome.

The key expansions to get are the Well of Darkness for the addition of the Overlord treachery rules. Altar of Despair has treachery too, but it has fewer store items and adds some stuff that isn't included in Road to Legend.

If you want to add campaigns, making the game more of an RPG lite, get the Road to Legend expansion as it radically changes the game.

The base game by itself is pretty good, but I feel it's too easy for the heroes. The Well of Darkness expansion balances things some (also balances the treasure decks) and gives the Overlord more options which equals more fun.

Must have for any Ameritrasher.

Roborally is a great Ameritrash intro game. A lot of people I've played this game with get into their robots' personalities (preprinted on their cards, really adds a lot of flavor) and then enjoy the chaotic madness of trying to maneuver their little droid. But, then there are the few who get too frustrated with the gameplay and give up, but most are good sports who get competitive about getting through the flags first.

It's got variale powers and lots of different maps so it lends itself to multiple plays well.

This review is based on the 3rd edition. Axis and Allies was one of the first board games that brought me into hobby gaming and I played it a lot starting in middle school up until college.



I enjoy the nation management: collecting income, territory expansion, choosing which units to purchase, developing technology, etc. My favorite country to play is Japan because you're in the thick of things, but you get to spend your money on cool stuff like battleships, aircraft carriers, bombers, fighters and whatnot. Unlike some countries (Russia) where all you do is buy infantry.



I hold a special place in my heart for Axis and Allies, and I doubt I'll ever get rid of my copy but I don't really ever want to play it again because every game pretty much plays out the same way, with the exception of a few lucky dice rolls or crazy strategy by lunatic players.

While my five nieces were in town for the week of July 4 I pulled out Buffy: The Vampire Slayer to play with them as they all really like Buffy. It was a disaster, none of them had the attention span to listen to the rules (they're 5-12 years old), fought with each other over who got to be which character and overall it was a bad decision. So my sister-in-law pulled out Yahtzee instead, that seemed to go over well.

But for the rest of us, it's not a bad little adventure game.